


Shift The Tide

by missmollyetc



Series: Mirror, Mirror [4]
Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding a safe way through a mountain riddled with enemy boltholes is the least of Eugene's worries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift The Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afireworkofroses](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=afireworkofroses).



> For the ‘"we just caught our alternate universe selves making out and now everything is super awkward” to list of shipping tropes that need to be implemented everywhere” prompt:’

They were almost all the way at the back of the cave, before Eugene let himself understand that the light wasn’t coming from some far off exit, and the cave was, in fact, a dead end rather than a path. He frowned and kept walking anyway, slowly leaning against the rough stone wall for cover as he brought his rifle up higher across his chest. Snafu pressed against his side, knocking the butt of his own weapon against Eugene’s elbow.

“What do we got here?” he whispered, lips just brushing the curves of Eugene’s ear.

Eugene swallowed, and shook his head. “Can’t say,” he whispered back.

They slid closer along the wall. Pebbles clacked together beneath their feet. Eugene halted, and Snafu poked him in the back. The light flickered ahead of them. 

“Need more bodies for this type of work,” he muttered.

“Well, it would defeat the purpose of _scouting_ , don’t you think?” Eugene twisted to frown behind himself. “If we all just came along to see if the way was clear?”

Snafu raised his eyebrows at him; his dark eyes glittered in the run off from the light up ahead. “Sure would help, though, wouldn’t it?” 

Eugene turned back around with a hissed breath. “I don’t smell smoke,” he said. “Can’t be a fire, can it?”

Snafu leaned a little harder against him, tucking that sharp chin into Eugene’s shoulder. “Thinkin’ we’d have heard someone by now, Sledge,” he said. “You wanna toss a grenade around the corner, settle the difference?”

Eugene turned his head, and Snafu’s nose pushed against his cheek. He swallowed, and resettled both hands on his rifle. “Let’s just go,” he said.

They shuffled forward, two careful steps at a time, squinting as they drew nearer to the light. It didn’t make much sense for there to be light in the cave, especially not like this, in a wavy, dense sort of way, not like sunlight from outside, or even a lamp or a fire. It was almost like that time he and Sid had sneaked into the community pool after hours. They’d splashed and swum, and Sid had dunked him but good too many times for Eugene to count. One of those times, he’d opened his eyes under the water, and seen a web of light on the concrete bottom, rocking back and forth with his own body.

Snafu touched the back of his shoulder, and moved up beside him as they came to the last turn before reaching the real back of the cave. Eugene tilted his head, sighting down his rifle. He heard Snafu’s breath shake out of his mouth, and then they were taking the turn, splitting apart to cover both sides of the cave.

The light washed over him and through him, tossing Eugene’s breath back down in his throat as his vision flashed green and then corkscrewed down to a point of hazy pale shadows. He fired reflexively, dimly registering the echo of Snafu’s own rifle as well as his own, and shook his head. He blinked over and over again, lightening dancing around the circles of his eyes. The air felt as thick as water, different from the unrelenting rot and humidity of the islands, like jelly against his skin through his matted uniform. He stumbled back, numb hands lowering his rifle and chilled feet falling heavily against the dull rocks of the cave, and then a body, sharp and too heavy for its edges slammed into his side and tossed the both of them up against the side of the cave.

Eugene’s head rolled, mouth falling open as he struggled to breathe the damp air, and tasted something sweet in the back of his throat. His heart shuddered, lungs heaving as that body gripped him with long, hard fingers and dragged them flush against each other.

“Sledgehammer—Gene, Eugene, you there?” Snafu’s voice wobbled, striking out and falling down on the wrong syllables. His mouth with those dangerously mobile lips fell against Eugene’s cheek. “The fuck is that shit?”

Eugene nodded. “Wah…” he breathed in noisily, and suddenly heard a sharp echo up ahead.

Snafu froze against him, and Eugene became conscious of his hands, still grasping his weapon. Their rifles were trapped between their bodies, barrels caught against either shoulder. Eugene turned his face forward on Snafu’s shoulder, and widened his eyes, forcing them to adjust. The pool of light had receded about a foot in front of them; it sloshed at the edges.

There were bodies in the center.

“What is it?” Snafu asked, pushing at Eugene’s shoulders as if he was trying leverage himself free.

Eugene shook his head. “It’s two men,” he said, tongue thick in his own mouth. “Two men grappling.”

“What the fuck?” Snafu asked, and yanking himself and his rifle free. He reared backwards, and the pool of light lapped against the stones at their feet. Eugene grabbed for him, tucking his rifle into his left arm; he caught the edge of Snafu’s shirt, and heard threads snap as he towed him forward, back against Eugene’s side. Snafu settled in a halting wave, rifle held out in front of him. The men in the pool were grunting at each other, the darker haired one groaned.

“Are you seeing this?” Eugene asked, barely able to raise his voice.

He saw Snafu nod slowly, from the corner of his eye. 

“They not grappling, Eugene,” he said, and Eugene twisted his mouth together between his teeth. He wanted to turn his head and face Snafu, but it seemed like to do so would snap his own neck. One of the men had hair exactly his shade of red, and the other’s hands were as fine as a pianist’s, quick as a thief against the—the red haired one’s body, the sides of his face and neck, his hair.

They stood in the exact center of the pool, one in Marine green, filthy with island shit, and the other in Navy colors, a blue button up over a white undershirt, a greasy apron, a packet of Lucky Strikes rolled up in his sleeve. The sailor had his hands on the marine’s sharp, slim hips, gripping tightly enough to whiten his knuckles. There was no light between their bodies.

Snafu’s laugh had more breath and edge than humor in it. He vibrated against Eugene’s side as they watched the two men. 

“You want to say something here, Eugene?” Snafu asked. 

Eugene blinked, and inhaled, counting his heartbeats like his father had taught him. He licked his lips, dragging the tip of his tongue over the cracks, and raw patches in the corners. The men seemed so solid, almost real, as if Eugene was looking at them through a set of binoculars, spying from atop a hill.

“Say _something_ , God da—”

“It’s _us_ ,” Eugene spit out. He breathed in sharply, feeling a sting as the air dried around them. “It’s you kissing me in some kind of get up and—” Snafu clapped a hand over his mouth, and Eugene squawked, turning his face around from the pool, eyebrows dropping together.

Snafu’s blank face stared back at him, eyes wide and glittering, and the light was washing against the side of his face. “You shut you mouth, Eugene,” he said. “We ain’t that far away from everybody that you can just go yelling that out.”

Eugene swallowed. He winced when one of the men in the pool made a noise. Snafu’s thick eyebrows quirked, eyes fluttering past Eugene’s shoulder to watch. Eugene felt blood rush to his face, frowning beneath Snafu’s hand; that couldn’t have been him; he’d never made such a sound in his life.

“I think you been holding out on me, Sledgehammer,” Snafu said, and Eugene jerked his face free. Snafu’s hand dropped to his collar, fingertips at the stretched hem of Eugene’s undershirt.

“I have not,” he said. “And no one can hear us. If they aren’t coming for the shots we fired, they sure as hell aren’t going to hear me say that—that—that…what is happening here?”

Snafu smirked, light dancing up to his hairline. “Thought you were the educated one.”

“Yes, I know what… _that_ is,” Eugene said, waving his free arm behind him. “But where did the rest of it come from?”

“You don’t got haunted shit in Alabama?” Snafu asked, cocking his head and leaning in. “We got it where I’m from.”

His fingers pressed down on Eugene’s collarbone, and rubbed in slow circles. His eyes were white-rimmed. Eugene breathed in and out quickly. He could hear the men behind him, the rustle of their clothes and the murmurs of their voices. The marine didn’t know the sailor, he could tell, there wasn’t that croon to his voice, that soft belly beneath the spiked shell. 

“I went to a haunted house when I was thirteen,” he said, shivering all of a sudden. The temperature was dropping, the air less like a wet towel against his back.

Snafu’s eyes were fixed on him, an inch away as he pushed their foreheads together. “You dress up?” he asked. “Like one of them Navy bastards?”

“Lion,” Eugene said, tongue stumbling a little. “You know I hate ships.”

“Then you stay here with me,” Snafu said, and Eugene arched as Snafu’s other hand clamped to his hip. “You don’t leave, you don’t die, you _stay_.”

He bit Eugene’s lower lip, hard and sharp, before dragging it into his mouth to suck on. Eugene rocked forward into him, slinging his rifle on to his back, and sinking both hands into the dense mat of Snafu’s curls. He tasted foul, they both did, and Eugene felt clumsy and slow beneath the thrust of Snafu’s tongue, but he held on, both arms around Snafu’s back, until Snafu gentled, mouth slick and lush and coaxing. Behind them, the cries were dying out, the light splashing against the sides of their faces, a dull red flush behind Eugene’s eyelids. 

The air dried and turned cold, until the only warmth was their own bodies. Snafu kissed the corner of Eugene’s mouth, and then the bow of his upper lip, pausing until Eugene had copied him before moving on, teasing him with a sharp nip before sliding a hand underneath his shirt, at the small of Eugene’s back. He held Snafu tighter as the dark filled in around them, and the sounds of the other men drifted away with the pool, until it was Snafu’s harsh breath and his own panting moans in Eugene’s ears.


End file.
